


Those Summer Nights

by denbroughed (elioperlman)



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Hanbrough, M/M, Reddie, benverly - Freeform, gift for lesbiantozier on tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-13 18:10:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13576137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elioperlman/pseuds/denbroughed
Summary: Ever since the summer of 1989, Bill Denbrough has never been the same. He doesn't know who he is without his friends, he blames himself for the death of his younger brother, and worst of all, he's in love with Mike Hanlon. One-shot.





	Those Summer Nights

Following the events of the summer of 1989, Bill Denbrough starts biking everyday. He likes the alone time that it allows him.

 

Somehow, Silver still rides just like she used to, save some squeaking around the tires. Each afternoon he starts on Wickham Street, rides past Stan’s, past the old church, past the sewer drain, past the standpipe, past downtown Derry, past Henry Bowers’ old home, past everything he knows. He doesn’t stop, and neither do his thoughts. They race, and with each nag— _It was your fault—_ and unsurety— _You will never be anything, and neither will he. Is it because of you?_ —and doubt— _You could have done something—_ Bill pedals faster.

 

On the way home, when everything is said and done, he sometimes stops at the library. He’s already got all five books allowed on his account checked out, and he can’t get anything new, but there’s a good reason that he makes the effort to quit his thoughts, park his bike, walk up the steps, and push the heavy wooden doors open: Mike Hanlon. Bill’s known him for less time than he’s known the other Losers, but it doesn’t feel that way. Sometimes Bill thinks Mike understands him better than anyone else in the world. _Sometimes_ , especially when he feels like this—loathing himself, hateful toward the world—he just needs to see him.

 

The library smells stale, like rotting infrastructure and old pages. Bill walks past several empty tables and aisles (it’s summer, and there’s normally not a soul to be seen here at such a time, when the sun is at its highest point in the sky and all of Derry’s other “natural wonders” beckon) before he reaches the reception desk. It doesn’t even seem like Mike notices him from where he’s typing away at his desktop computer, his prized overdue stamp sat lovingly next to his mousepad. He’s wrong, though.

 

“How was your ride?”

 

His voice startles Bill, who had taken to admiring the way that the sleeves of Mike’s shirt fit snugly around his biceps. He looks up, and realizing he’d been staring, he feels the heat creep up from his neck to his face. The air conditioning in the library is working full-speed too, which is a dead giveaway. He feels Mike’s eyes on him, his own focused on the floor, and wills the obvious redness to disappear.

 

“Oh, u–u–um… It was good.”

 

Bill pinches his thigh. _You didn’t take an entire year of speech to start stuttering as soon as summer starts,_  he chastises, realizing he would never be able to say that sentence out loud. He knows it has nothing to do with summer, either.

 

“You know your account is full, right?” Mike says, a sheepish smile softening his features. He’s grown more handsome as he’s gotten older, in a different way than the other Losers have come into their own. Unlike Stan, he hasn’t started to grow out (in his case, unwanted) facial hair, and unlike Richie, he hasn’t found himself the victim of an awe-inspiring growth spurt. _He’s perfect,_ is all that Bill can think. _That’s the best way to put it._

 

“You can’t borrow any more books.”

 

“I know,” Bill replies, and his eyes meet Mike’s. There’s an obvious understanding between them, and when Bill recognizes it in Mike’s eyes, he breathes a sigh of relief before he even says a word.

 

Mike looks from his computer and the spreadsheet he has open on the screen and then to his watch before he glances back up at Bill. “I’ll meet you in an hour when my shift is over,” he promises, voice even lower than by library standards.

 

Bill waits for him at the quarry. The cliff above it provides a nice view, and it’s a place where they’ve made many memories with their friends. Sitting here now, Bill can’t wrap his mind around the fact that in a year from now, most of them—if not all of them—will be gone. Richie’s been talking about Los Angeles for years now, and how living there will be his chance to make it big; he won’t admit it, but Bill thinks Eddie’s going with him. Beverly’s been accepted to a fashion school in Chicago from what Bill’s heard, and Stan’s going Ivy League. Ben wants to be an architect, and he’s so talented that Bill’s pretty sure he could do whatever he wants and be successful.

 

When Mike joins him, and lays next to him on the grass, watching the clouds pass over them, Bill asks, “W–w–what are you doing after graduation, M–Mike?”

 

Mike looks like the question surprises him and Bill tries to recover with a weak “S–s–sorry,” but Mike waves it off.

 

“No, it’s okay. I’ve thought about it. We all have,” he says. “As much as we all want to leave this town… I don’t know. I like my job at the library. I feel like I’m making a difference, you know? And I feel…” He searches for the word. “... _connected_ to this place. Maybe we all do.”

 

He looks to Bill as if for some kind of validation, but Bill can’t deliver. Mike’s eyes are back on the sky again in a moment, and he shrugs.

 

“I think I’m going to stay here. Just in case.”

 

He doesn’t specify what it means, but he doesn’t need to. Bill understands, and with his silence, he thanks him. Mike knows how he feels about this place, and how he feels about that summer. This isn’t their first time up on this cliff, and ever since these meetings started two years ago, Bill’s been vowing that _this time_ he’ll tell him he loves him.

 

_Now is the perfect time,_ Bill tells himself. _Go on. Say it, you fucking idiot!_

 

“I’m… g–g–glad I met you, Mike.”

 

He fudges, predictably, but Bill thinks it sums up his feelings almost perfectly. Bill looks over at his friend, and for a second, something he doesn’t recognize passes over Mike’s face, but he doesn’t say anything.

 

_He doesn’t say anything._

 

Senior year, Mike, who has been attending public school since tenth grade now, gets a girlfriend. Bill does too, but both relationships fizzle out. At the Losers’ Christmas party, Bill asks Eddie, “E–E–Eds?”

 

“ _Don’t call me that_. It’ll encourage Richie.”

 

“E–Eddie,” Bill corrects, “Just asking for a f–f–friend… How did you know you liked R–Richie?”

 

“Is this about Mike?” Eddie asks almost immediately, popping a chocolate-covered mini pretzel into his mouth. Bill shakes his head fervently, but something tells him that it won’t do much to convince Eddie otherwise. His friend still plays along, though, and he’s grateful for it.

 

“I can’t explain it… I just kind of… I guess I looked at Richie one day and realized that as much as he gets on my fucking nerves, I can’t live without him.” Bill absorbs his words, sloshing his half-empty glass of eggnog gently in his hand. “Bill, if you like someone, you need to tell them. You’re running out of time.”

 

The next time that Bill is alone with Mike, he still doesn’t tell him, even though his heart thrums against his chest just at the sight of him. Instead, he asks, “How do you live with it?”

 

“Live with what?” Mike pushes his glasses up on his nose and Bill swears that he could have melted into a puddle right then.

 

“Knowing that something happened and thinking it might be your fault,” Bill answers. A lump catches in Mike’s throat, and Bill immediately feels bad for asking, but he can’t take it back now. He eyes him nervously, waiting for an outburst, even if it’s not something Mike is prone to.

 

“Well…” Mike starts, swallowing hard and looking for the right words. “It’s kind of impossible to avoid it, and I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t haunt me. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to escape it, the memory of what happened, not completely… But sometimes I have to remind myself that the not everything is defined by my choices. Sometimes, things are supposed to happen, and they will, no matter how hard you try to stop them. It’s not an easy truth… But the universe works in weird ways, you know? It hasn’t been the kindest to all of us. But we have to keep going. We have to hope that we can at least take control of our future.”

 

Bill thinks of Georgie’s smile, and how he would have been in middle school today. He bites his lip to choke back a sob.

 

Winter break comes and goes. Midterms, Valentine’s Day, finals, and prom follow. Stan and Ben are leaving early for summer programs, and Beverly’s visiting one last time. The Losers Club reunites one last time at the quarry, splashing and talking and laughing as the sun sinks beneath the horizon. Stan says he has a flight to catch, and Eddie and Richie leave soon after, hand in hand. Beverly offers to drive Ben home, and she gives Bill a kiss on the cheek before she leaves.

 

Bill looks up at Mike, still drying off on one of the nearby rocks; his skin is illuminated in the moonlight, particularly bright tonight, and somehow, he looks peaceful. Bill feels very differently. There are tears brimming behind his eyes, but he doesn’t want them to fall. Mike notices him staring and looks up at him, though, and he can’t help it.

 

Bill cries, and Mike stands, coming over to meet him. Within moments, Mike’s comforting arms are around him, and Bill melts into his embrace, burying his face into Mike’s damp shirt and hardly bothering to hold back his ugly, choked up sobs. For the first time, he realizes that this really is _over._ His childhood ended long ago, but his friends have always been a reminder of it, the Losers’ Club a collective safety blanket of shared life experience that he could look to when things got rough. Without them… _Who is he?_

 

“Shit, Bill… You okay?” Mike asks, though it’s obvious that he regrets the question as soon as he asks it; who bothers to waste their breath asking if someone’s _okay_ as they bawl into their shirt? Bill thinks it’s sweet, at the very least _kind._

 

He takes the comment as a cue to back up, though, and does so, letting go of Mike and his shirt but not straying too far. Bill wipes at his eyes and rubs at his running nose once with the back of his hand, embarrassed.

 

“I wasn’t ready for a–a–all of t–t–this to be over,” he admits, and Mike looks at him with pity. Clearly, he’s been preparing for this day. Bill envies him. He doesn’t know how Mike does it, how he stays so calm and collected in even the face of imminent danger. He admires him, and so much more.

 

“You g–g–guys have all become my family, and w–without y–y–you…”

 

Mike pulls him in again and rubs his back; the stubborn side of Bill wants to jerk away, but his heart won’t let him. This is the first show of affection he’s received in months, and he can’t turn his back on the person always willing to provide it.

 

“I know how you feel,” Mike says, and immediately Bill feels guilty. Mike’s the one without parents, even though Bill feels like his ignore him so often that he might as well not have any himself. “This year went by too fast. It’s like our story ended before it was finished. Like there’s so much I still haven’t gotten to do—”

 

“—or say,” Bill finishes for him.

 

“My thoughts exactly.”

 

Bill blinks. Mike is standing close to him; he doesn’t think they’ve ever actually been this close before, not like this. He gulps, and meets Mike’s eyes. Is he thinking the same thing? Mike Hanlon, of all of his friends, has always been impossible to read. It’s like a curse.

 

“Since we’re all sp–splitting up, I might as well say it, r–r–right?”

 

Mike doesn’t have any real idea what it is he is going to say, not that he lets on to, but he nods supportively anyway. “Go for it.”

 

Bill takes a deep breath. _Well_ , he thinks. _Here goes nothing._

 

“Mike,” he starts, “I’m telling you this as your friend, and you can hate me afterward, but I just can’t stand you not knowing… I love you.”

 

Bill averts his gaze quickly, expecting the worst; in his shyness, he misses how Mike smiles. _No stutter_.

 

He feels Mike reach for him; his thumb, placed gently on his chin, tilts his head up until he’s looking at him, and Mike closes the space between them with a kiss. Bill’s surprised for a moment before he returns it desperately, like he’s been wishing for this for years. He steadies himself, feeling dizzy, placing his hands on Mike’s arms; he’s always wanted to touch those too. When they break apart for air, Bill swears again that he’s in love, and he never wants to kiss anyone other than Mike again. He looks at him for a long moment, bewildered.

 

“I was afraid you would never say it,” Mike chuckles, breaking the silence between them. “Or that I might have to say it first.” Their foreheads pressed together, Mike murmurs, “I love you too, Bill,” before their lips meet again, two figured silhouetted in the moonlight.

 

When autumn arrives, Bill doesn’t leave Derry. In the day he writes, and at night he falls asleep in Mike’s arms. He no longer bikes each day, but when he does break Silver out, Mike sits on the handlebars or holds on from the back, and his ride is filled with laughter and joy rather than silence.

 

Following the events of the summer of 1989, Bill Denbrough has never been the same. Ever since that humid, early June evening in 1995, however, he’s felt _loved_ , and that has made all the difference.


End file.
